Bombing at shrine kills 2, injures British ambassador

Bombing at shrine kills 2,injures British ambassador
DHAKA, Bangladesh -- A bomb exploded at a Muslim shrine in northeastern Bangladesh today, killing two people. The British ambassador was among dozens wounded, police and witnesses said.
British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury was taken to Osmani Medical College Hospital in Sylhet. Doctors were reported as saying his condition was not serious.
No one claimed responsibility for the blast, which also killed two Bangladeshi men and injured more than 40 other people, including senior government officials, police and media reports said.
In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he was "shocked" by the attack. "Details of exactly what happened and nature of the injuries are not clear," Straw added.
An army helicopter was being readied to bring Choudhury to the capital, private TV station ATN Bangla said.
The blast occurred during noon prayers at the Hazrat Shahjalal shrine in Sylhet, 120 miles northeast of the capital Dhaka, a police official said on condition of anonymity.
Choudhury, a 44-year-old Bangladeshi-born Briton, was visiting the shrine after assuming his post last week.
Hunt for terror suspects
MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan -- U.S. troops and Afghan forces entered a tribal region in northwestern Pakistan while chasing terror suspects, but they made no arrests and crossed back to Afghanistan, residents and defense officials said today.
The incursion happened Thursday near the village of Lowara Mandi, 15 miles west of Miran Shah, the main town in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region, said a defense official in the capital, Islamabad. Local residents said the Americans stayed for three hours.
Pakistan has refused to grant U.S. troops the right to pursue guerrillas on its territory. The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Pakistani army has asked the government to lodge a strong protest with Washington over the intrusion, the second this month.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Islamabad said he had no information on the allegation.
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas hugging the border with Afghanistan. Officials say supporters of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime and its Al-Qaida allies use the area to mount attacks on U.S. troops and government forces in Afghanistan.
House votes to preserve,expand child tax credit
WASHINGTON -- A vote to preserve and expand a $1,000 child tax credit topped a month of House work highlighting President Bush's tax cuts during this election year.
House lawmakers have voted in succession to lock down the president's tax cuts, a broadened bottom tax bracket and adjustments to the alternative minimum tax so that levy on wealthy tax dodgers wouldn't snare more unsuspecting families.
The House voted 271-139 on Thursday to add the $1,000 child tax credit to the list of tax reductions they want to safeguard. The bill would cut taxes $228 billion over a decade and stop the child credit from dropping to $700 next year.
"If parents are to take advantage of this tax credit to purchase new clothes, school supplies or a new computer for their child or to invest in their child's future, they need to know that these tax cuts are not here today and gone tomorrow," said Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.
The Senate plans to wrap extensions of the three popular tax cuts into one bill and pass it later this year. The Republican budget passed in the House envisions a final bill that stops short of making the tax cuts permanent and instead calls for a one-year extension.
Nichols murder trial
McALESTER, Okla. -- Prosecutors called rebuttal witnesses to attack key elements of the defense put forth for Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols at his state murder trial.
Nichols' lawyers rested their case Thursday, after which the government questioned six people. Eight more were to testify today, and closing arguments are tentatively scheduled to begin Monday afternoon.
Defense lawyers called 96 witnesses, many of them directly supporting Nichols' assertion that other conspirators gave executed bomber Timothy McVeigh substantial help in planning the explosion that killed 168 people.
Nichols was at his home in Herington, Kan., when the 4,000-pound fertilizer and fuel-oil bomb was detonated.
But prosecutors allege Nichols gathered bomb components, including explosive ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and helped McVeigh pack the homemade device into a Ryder truck.
Associated Press